The Maw: When The Lights of the World Went Out
- Thread starter Star Eater
- Start date
Well, this is rather relevant. Belgium is apparently giving their citizens Iodine pills, in case of a nuclear event.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/b...s-all-citizens-nuclear-emergency-plan-n564606
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/b...s-all-citizens-nuclear-emergency-plan-n564606
Insider
Banned
wow, that would tie hands of much of european militaries in a huge rescue cleanup, and support operation. Speaking of Poland we would probably sent 6 Chemical Air Battalion, equipped to deal with operations in contaminated area. A support battalion would be nice, as there is a lot of refugees which have to be provided with food, shelter, and medical care.
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_Batalion_Chemiczny_Sił_Powietrznych
http://6bchem.wp.mil.pl/pl/index.html
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_Batalion_Chemiczny_Sił_Powietrznych
http://6bchem.wp.mil.pl/pl/index.html
4.
Before the dust had settled, the investigation was already beginning.
It would eventually become the largest, most expensive criminal investigation in history. Agencies and organisations from across the world assembled and, on April 30th, formed the Brussels Commission in the French city of Lyon. No stone was to be left unturned.
Before its formation, just two days after the bombing came the first breakthrough. The men within the van carrying the bomb could not be identified but the van itself could be. Once the railway station’s surveillance footage was found, having been stored on the servers of the Belgian Ministry of Mobility, the van’s Greek license plate was tracked to a dealership in Orestiada, on the Turkish border. Scouring through the dealership’s surveillance footage, the two men were finally caught making the purchase. Again, their identities were impossible to figure out. But the van was then tracked to a safehouse not far from Orestiada, where the bomb had been loaded. It was widely theorised that a second vehicle had transported the weapon into Greece from Turkey, before it was loaded into a vehicle with EU license plates to gain free access all the way to Belgium. How the weapon was brought into Greece however remained unclear. A police raid on the safehouse found it abandoned, but the landlord happily provided information of the previous renters. Finally a name came up; Azzam al Din Antar, an Iraqi citizen. Noting that he hadn’t even used a fake name, the director of the investigation Raymond Kendall remarked at a press conference that “we aren’t dealing with mastermind villains, we’re dealing with unintelligent puppets.” Regardless, Azzam al Din Antar became the most wanted man on the planet. It didn’t take long to find him.
On April 26th, he was arrested at Istanbul Atatürk Airport while trying to board an Iraqi Airways flight to Baghdad. Antar quickly found himself handed over to the Central Intelligence Agency; no European country wanted their human rights laws to get in the way of the investigation, and so twenty four hours after capture Antar found himself at Guantanamo Bay. He was very quick to talk, but it was hardly necessary. Included in his luggage at the airport were electronic devices were a laptop and mobile phone which contained plenty. The names of the two bombers were revealed – Sayyid Almasi and Mohammed Quraishi – while online conversations were picked apart. Piecing the evidence together, it started to become clear what had happened between the three. Antar’s role was to receive the bomb and store it for several days until the other two arrived. Though the conversations didn’t contain all the information the Brussels Commission hoped for, they did show that someone known only as “the Turk” had driven the bomb from the Syrian border to the safehouse. Intensive questioning came up blank; Antar knew neither the identity of the Turk nor where the bomb had come from before the Turk’s involvement. But then came a remarkable piece of luck. Within Antar’s phone, a photograph was found of the two bombers posing together with the weapon itself. Not only did this provide the first real look at the bomb, it also contained one piece of information that no-one even thought to notice until amateur investigators on the website Reddit, of all places, spotted it. In the background, through one of the van’s windows, was a second white transit van which, despite the distance, seemed to have a Turkish license plate. Was it possible that this was the first vehicle, which the Turk had used to transport the weapon?
The license plate was registered to someone called Mohammed Asghar, a Turkish citizen. A countrywide manhunt began but it seemed too late; after several days it became clear that he had likely crossed into Syria. But then a Turkish police officer came forward, believing that he had pulled Asghar over north of Gaziantep for a speeding violation. A check of his vehicle’s dashboard camera confirmed that it was indeed the same vehicle, and it was heading towards the Syrian border, not away. The fact that the vehicle didn’t seem weighed down by anything heavy in the back also implied that the pull over took place before the bomb was aboard. With the possible location of the bomb’s delivery significantly narrowed down, the Brussels Commission began scouring every traffic and surveillance camera on that highway from the time of the van being pulled over. Like a jigsaw they began piecing together footage of the van passing by each camera, until eventually finding it pulling off to enter the city of Kilis, on the Syrian border. The commission then made the choice to publish all the thousands of hours of gathered footage from every security camera in the city on the Internet, appealing to the public for help sifting through it. Their objective was to find the van. To the astonishment of many, it was found only forty minutes after the publication. From this one snippet, the rest could fall into place. The van was seen entering a garage in the heart of the city; two days earlier yet another van had also entered. Neither it nor its occupants had left in those two days. Turkish police raided the garage. The owners were found dead, having committed suicide knowing their capture was coming. Electronic equipment was seized and then, to the supreme shock of the officers, Mohammed Asghar, “the Turk,” was discovered hiding in a crawlspace on the second floor.
Asghar was the lead the Brussels Commission had been waiting for. With no small amount of coercion he explained that the bomb had been smuggled across the border by “nobodies,” but that its nuclear material came from two sources. The first was looted from a Syrian military facility the Islamic State had overrun a year previously. Its crudeness had meant that everyone, even in the top echelons of the group, was surprised by the eventual power of the bomb. The second source was even more troublesome. Having worried that they didn’t have enough material to construct a sizeable, let alone working, weapon, the Islamic State had appealed to an enigmatic figure known only as “the Saudi.”
Now it seemed the rabbit hole was going deeper than anyone had feared.
Comments?
Before the dust had settled, the investigation was already beginning.
It would eventually become the largest, most expensive criminal investigation in history. Agencies and organisations from across the world assembled and, on April 30th, formed the Brussels Commission in the French city of Lyon. No stone was to be left unturned.
Before its formation, just two days after the bombing came the first breakthrough. The men within the van carrying the bomb could not be identified but the van itself could be. Once the railway station’s surveillance footage was found, having been stored on the servers of the Belgian Ministry of Mobility, the van’s Greek license plate was tracked to a dealership in Orestiada, on the Turkish border. Scouring through the dealership’s surveillance footage, the two men were finally caught making the purchase. Again, their identities were impossible to figure out. But the van was then tracked to a safehouse not far from Orestiada, where the bomb had been loaded. It was widely theorised that a second vehicle had transported the weapon into Greece from Turkey, before it was loaded into a vehicle with EU license plates to gain free access all the way to Belgium. How the weapon was brought into Greece however remained unclear. A police raid on the safehouse found it abandoned, but the landlord happily provided information of the previous renters. Finally a name came up; Azzam al Din Antar, an Iraqi citizen. Noting that he hadn’t even used a fake name, the director of the investigation Raymond Kendall remarked at a press conference that “we aren’t dealing with mastermind villains, we’re dealing with unintelligent puppets.” Regardless, Azzam al Din Antar became the most wanted man on the planet. It didn’t take long to find him.
On April 26th, he was arrested at Istanbul Atatürk Airport while trying to board an Iraqi Airways flight to Baghdad. Antar quickly found himself handed over to the Central Intelligence Agency; no European country wanted their human rights laws to get in the way of the investigation, and so twenty four hours after capture Antar found himself at Guantanamo Bay. He was very quick to talk, but it was hardly necessary. Included in his luggage at the airport were electronic devices were a laptop and mobile phone which contained plenty. The names of the two bombers were revealed – Sayyid Almasi and Mohammed Quraishi – while online conversations were picked apart. Piecing the evidence together, it started to become clear what had happened between the three. Antar’s role was to receive the bomb and store it for several days until the other two arrived. Though the conversations didn’t contain all the information the Brussels Commission hoped for, they did show that someone known only as “the Turk” had driven the bomb from the Syrian border to the safehouse. Intensive questioning came up blank; Antar knew neither the identity of the Turk nor where the bomb had come from before the Turk’s involvement. But then came a remarkable piece of luck. Within Antar’s phone, a photograph was found of the two bombers posing together with the weapon itself. Not only did this provide the first real look at the bomb, it also contained one piece of information that no-one even thought to notice until amateur investigators on the website Reddit, of all places, spotted it. In the background, through one of the van’s windows, was a second white transit van which, despite the distance, seemed to have a Turkish license plate. Was it possible that this was the first vehicle, which the Turk had used to transport the weapon?
The license plate was registered to someone called Mohammed Asghar, a Turkish citizen. A countrywide manhunt began but it seemed too late; after several days it became clear that he had likely crossed into Syria. But then a Turkish police officer came forward, believing that he had pulled Asghar over north of Gaziantep for a speeding violation. A check of his vehicle’s dashboard camera confirmed that it was indeed the same vehicle, and it was heading towards the Syrian border, not away. The fact that the vehicle didn’t seem weighed down by anything heavy in the back also implied that the pull over took place before the bomb was aboard. With the possible location of the bomb’s delivery significantly narrowed down, the Brussels Commission began scouring every traffic and surveillance camera on that highway from the time of the van being pulled over. Like a jigsaw they began piecing together footage of the van passing by each camera, until eventually finding it pulling off to enter the city of Kilis, on the Syrian border. The commission then made the choice to publish all the thousands of hours of gathered footage from every security camera in the city on the Internet, appealing to the public for help sifting through it. Their objective was to find the van. To the astonishment of many, it was found only forty minutes after the publication. From this one snippet, the rest could fall into place. The van was seen entering a garage in the heart of the city; two days earlier yet another van had also entered. Neither it nor its occupants had left in those two days. Turkish police raided the garage. The owners were found dead, having committed suicide knowing their capture was coming. Electronic equipment was seized and then, to the supreme shock of the officers, Mohammed Asghar, “the Turk,” was discovered hiding in a crawlspace on the second floor.
Asghar was the lead the Brussels Commission had been waiting for. With no small amount of coercion he explained that the bomb had been smuggled across the border by “nobodies,” but that its nuclear material came from two sources. The first was looted from a Syrian military facility the Islamic State had overrun a year previously. Its crudeness had meant that everyone, even in the top echelons of the group, was surprised by the eventual power of the bomb. The second source was even more troublesome. Having worried that they didn’t have enough material to construct a sizeable, let alone working, weapon, the Islamic State had appealed to an enigmatic figure known only as “the Saudi.”
Now it seemed the rabbit hole was going deeper than anyone had feared.
Comments?
Reads like a Tom Clancy thriller, but better. The rabbit hole sure is deep. There has to be at least one state sponsor involved, maybe two. I feel like insta-sunshine isn't finished raining down just yet.
Not that most others will be too sympathetic, even other Muslims don't like them, I mean they're tearing down a lot of historic sites in Mecca to put up hotels.
Admiral Halsey
Banned
If the house of Saud gets implicated then holy shit the Mid-East is fucking doomed.
This is an incredibly thrilling and well-written piece, and I hope, more than I perhaps ever have on this website, that this goes on until a great ending and not end early. Please keep up the great work!
I'm with this guy. This has the potential to be one of the "greats" on this website.
Penny for The Guy
Banned
Yes, Indeed
If gratuitous compliments will motivate more, may I add mine. This is an excellent (however horrifyingly plausible) TL.
If gratuitous compliments will motivate more, may I add mine. This is an excellent (however horrifyingly plausible) TL.
5.
As the investigation deepened, so too did the response.
As we have already mentioned, Belgium was quick to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. In the short term, this included a massive relief operation to the country which quickly shifted to an all-out international effort. As well as the members of NATO and the European Union, great powers such as China, Russia, Iran, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Brazil, and South Africa all sent aid of varying forms. Military engineers of various nations found themselves brought in to quickly construct airfields throughout Belgium and northeast France to accommodate the huge influx. The rapid response undoubtedly prevented an even greater humanitarian catastrophe, but the Belgian countryside filled with tents and shacks for a long time as people still had nowhere to go. More than two million Belgians were now homeless, many having fled the dangers of fallout, with Brussels effectively empty. The Dutch and French bore the brunt of accommodating refugees, happily opening themselves up to the overwhelming majority with whom either of them shared a common language. With the Belgian economy either destroyed or at a standstill, it was unclear what exactly could be done to save it.
The first response was decided at an emergency meeting of European finance ministers on April 23rd, when it was unanimously agreed to effectively expel Belgium from the single currency to prevent contagion. This was an unprecedented step but even the Belgians reluctantly agreed to it, returning to the franc which was immediately pegged to the U.S. dollar. The following day, a decision needed to be taken on a security response. Raqqah had been destroyed, and virtually every member of both the EU and NATO had by now engaged themselves in the bombing campaign against the Islamic State. Many were terrified that a new police state would be drafted, yet surprisingly this did not come for all. Security experts had concluded from the destruction of Brussels that no amount of surveillance would have prevented it; the text and online conversations between the perpetrators were easily accessible to intelligence services, yet simply vanished in the gigantic volume of data. Belgium’s new Prime Minister, Didier Reynders, pointed out that “at some point we’re going to have to realise that this wouldn’t have happened if there weren’t any Muslims in Europe.” Such a statement, even from somewhere clearly emotionally wrenched by the attack, was jarring at best. But it was an opinion reflected in the actions of others. On April 21st, the governments of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Macedonia all announced that they would refuse to allow any Middle Eastern refugees to cross into their countries, daring Europe to take legal action against them. Instead, the European Council came to a solemn agreement.
With the damage inflicted to Brussels, the European Council had instead met in Strasbourg where they drafted what became known as the Strasbourg Accords. Recognising that the European Union itself was under threat of falling apart if something dramatic was not done, especially to appease the far-right lest they grow in power, significant powers over immigration would be devolved to member states. This included total sovereignty, no questions asked, over immigrants coming from non-EU countries. Any kind of discrimination including, deliberately, on the basis of religion would be permitted. Authority over asylum seekers was also devolved. Within days of the new rules coming into force, the result was exactly what had been predicted; like dominoes, one country after another began announcing either extremely strict limitations on Middle Eastern refugees or a complete shutdown altogether. The Four Freedoms were beginning to crumble. Huge protests against the changes hit European cities, but especially in Germany where many people saw their own shameful history seemingly repeated. Many were quick to point out that none of the attackers had been refugees. Another agreement amongst the Europeans also saw new penalties for supporting terrorism which practically swept away parts of the European Convention on Human Rights. In Britain, many were ecstatic that legal barriers to preventing action against so-called “hate preachers” were now gone. One of the most infamous, Anjem Choudary, didn’t live to see it brought into force. He was awaiting trial for support of the Islamic State when he was murdered along with much of his family after his house was burned down. Many others were rounded up and detained, from Portugal to Sweden, Britain to Cyprus.
For Muslims within Europe, a new nightmare had begun. Riots had consumed Muslim-heavy neighbourhoods for days after the attack across Europe, with widespread death and destruction. The Islamic State had intended to sow terror and chaos, and they succeeded. One truly massive riot took place in Warsaw, when a rally for the right-wing populist party Kukiz'15 turned into a frenzy. It was believed that the sight of a man in a turban enraged a group of marchers, whipping up tension throughout the crowd. By the evening, widespread violence was consuming central Warsaw with the army having to be deployed onto the streets to keep order. The brutal footage of the scenes shot by a reporter for Vice went viral throughout the world, proclaimed as the ugly face of European fear. In Germany, clashes between supporters and opponents of the Strasbourg Accords ripped through several cities. Chancellor Angela Merkel, previously so supportive of the refugees, now changed her tune. It would not be enough. The party chairman, Volker Kauder, would soon oust her and take over the Chancellorship.
The refusal to allow Middle Eastern refugees to step onto European shores didn’t mean they stopped trying. On April 27th, just hours before the fast-tracked protocols were to come into force, an estimated 8,000 refugees attempted the treacherous crossing over the Mediterranean. They found themselves confronted by the Italian and Greek Coast Guards who began shunting them back. More than one boat capsized, with countless dead. Many refugee boats attempted to skip the Greek islands, fearing capture, and reach the mainland where they hoped they could quickly escape. A haunting image was the result. The people of Athens, birthplace of Western civilisation, awoke on April 28th to see more than five hundred bodies, of all ages, washing up on their beaches. Little sympathy was offered by many on the streets. More than one Greek citizen interviewed said they wished there were more of them. It was not a sentiment unique to Greece, nor was it a sentiment shared by the majority of Greeks or Europeans. But, as more Muslims began to be rounded up on increasingly spurious charges, it was one which was growing.
On that day an American comedian, Jon Stewart, shared online a clip from the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg. The protagonist, Dr. Ernst Janning, played by Burt Lancaster is facing trial for his role in the crimes of the Nazi regime. One does not need the parallels of what he said spelt out. The words speak for themselves.
As the investigation deepened, so too did the response.
As we have already mentioned, Belgium was quick to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. In the short term, this included a massive relief operation to the country which quickly shifted to an all-out international effort. As well as the members of NATO and the European Union, great powers such as China, Russia, Iran, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Brazil, and South Africa all sent aid of varying forms. Military engineers of various nations found themselves brought in to quickly construct airfields throughout Belgium and northeast France to accommodate the huge influx. The rapid response undoubtedly prevented an even greater humanitarian catastrophe, but the Belgian countryside filled with tents and shacks for a long time as people still had nowhere to go. More than two million Belgians were now homeless, many having fled the dangers of fallout, with Brussels effectively empty. The Dutch and French bore the brunt of accommodating refugees, happily opening themselves up to the overwhelming majority with whom either of them shared a common language. With the Belgian economy either destroyed or at a standstill, it was unclear what exactly could be done to save it.
The first response was decided at an emergency meeting of European finance ministers on April 23rd, when it was unanimously agreed to effectively expel Belgium from the single currency to prevent contagion. This was an unprecedented step but even the Belgians reluctantly agreed to it, returning to the franc which was immediately pegged to the U.S. dollar. The following day, a decision needed to be taken on a security response. Raqqah had been destroyed, and virtually every member of both the EU and NATO had by now engaged themselves in the bombing campaign against the Islamic State. Many were terrified that a new police state would be drafted, yet surprisingly this did not come for all. Security experts had concluded from the destruction of Brussels that no amount of surveillance would have prevented it; the text and online conversations between the perpetrators were easily accessible to intelligence services, yet simply vanished in the gigantic volume of data. Belgium’s new Prime Minister, Didier Reynders, pointed out that “at some point we’re going to have to realise that this wouldn’t have happened if there weren’t any Muslims in Europe.” Such a statement, even from somewhere clearly emotionally wrenched by the attack, was jarring at best. But it was an opinion reflected in the actions of others. On April 21st, the governments of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Macedonia all announced that they would refuse to allow any Middle Eastern refugees to cross into their countries, daring Europe to take legal action against them. Instead, the European Council came to a solemn agreement.
With the damage inflicted to Brussels, the European Council had instead met in Strasbourg where they drafted what became known as the Strasbourg Accords. Recognising that the European Union itself was under threat of falling apart if something dramatic was not done, especially to appease the far-right lest they grow in power, significant powers over immigration would be devolved to member states. This included total sovereignty, no questions asked, over immigrants coming from non-EU countries. Any kind of discrimination including, deliberately, on the basis of religion would be permitted. Authority over asylum seekers was also devolved. Within days of the new rules coming into force, the result was exactly what had been predicted; like dominoes, one country after another began announcing either extremely strict limitations on Middle Eastern refugees or a complete shutdown altogether. The Four Freedoms were beginning to crumble. Huge protests against the changes hit European cities, but especially in Germany where many people saw their own shameful history seemingly repeated. Many were quick to point out that none of the attackers had been refugees. Another agreement amongst the Europeans also saw new penalties for supporting terrorism which practically swept away parts of the European Convention on Human Rights. In Britain, many were ecstatic that legal barriers to preventing action against so-called “hate preachers” were now gone. One of the most infamous, Anjem Choudary, didn’t live to see it brought into force. He was awaiting trial for support of the Islamic State when he was murdered along with much of his family after his house was burned down. Many others were rounded up and detained, from Portugal to Sweden, Britain to Cyprus.
For Muslims within Europe, a new nightmare had begun. Riots had consumed Muslim-heavy neighbourhoods for days after the attack across Europe, with widespread death and destruction. The Islamic State had intended to sow terror and chaos, and they succeeded. One truly massive riot took place in Warsaw, when a rally for the right-wing populist party Kukiz'15 turned into a frenzy. It was believed that the sight of a man in a turban enraged a group of marchers, whipping up tension throughout the crowd. By the evening, widespread violence was consuming central Warsaw with the army having to be deployed onto the streets to keep order. The brutal footage of the scenes shot by a reporter for Vice went viral throughout the world, proclaimed as the ugly face of European fear. In Germany, clashes between supporters and opponents of the Strasbourg Accords ripped through several cities. Chancellor Angela Merkel, previously so supportive of the refugees, now changed her tune. It would not be enough. The party chairman, Volker Kauder, would soon oust her and take over the Chancellorship.
The refusal to allow Middle Eastern refugees to step onto European shores didn’t mean they stopped trying. On April 27th, just hours before the fast-tracked protocols were to come into force, an estimated 8,000 refugees attempted the treacherous crossing over the Mediterranean. They found themselves confronted by the Italian and Greek Coast Guards who began shunting them back. More than one boat capsized, with countless dead. Many refugee boats attempted to skip the Greek islands, fearing capture, and reach the mainland where they hoped they could quickly escape. A haunting image was the result. The people of Athens, birthplace of Western civilisation, awoke on April 28th to see more than five hundred bodies, of all ages, washing up on their beaches. Little sympathy was offered by many on the streets. More than one Greek citizen interviewed said they wished there were more of them. It was not a sentiment unique to Greece, nor was it a sentiment shared by the majority of Greeks or Europeans. But, as more Muslims began to be rounded up on increasingly spurious charges, it was one which was growing.
On that day an American comedian, Jon Stewart, shared online a clip from the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg. The protagonist, Dr. Ernst Janning, played by Burt Lancaster is facing trial for his role in the crimes of the Nazi regime. One does not need the parallels of what he said spelt out. The words speak for themselves.
“There was a fever over the land, a fever of disgrace, of indignity,
of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements
within. Above all there was fear, fear of today, fear of tomorrow,
fear of our neighbours, and fear of ourselves.
Only when you understand that can you understand
what Hitler meant to us, because he said to us:
of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements
within. Above all there was fear, fear of today, fear of tomorrow,
fear of our neighbours, and fear of ourselves.
Only when you understand that can you understand
what Hitler meant to us, because he said to us:
"Lift your heads. Be proud to be German.
There are devils among us, communists, liberals,
Jews, gypsies. Once these devils will be destroyed
your misery will be destroyed."
What about those of us who knew better, we who knew
the words were lies and worse than lies? Why
did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because
we loved our country. What difference does it
make if a few political extremists lose their
rights? What difference does it make
if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It
is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we
are going through. It will be discarded
sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded -- sooner or later.
The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows!
We will go forward. Forward is the great password.
And then, one day we looked around and found
that we were in an even more terrible danger.
What was going to be a passing phase had
become the way of life.”
There are devils among us, communists, liberals,
Jews, gypsies. Once these devils will be destroyed
your misery will be destroyed."
What about those of us who knew better, we who knew
the words were lies and worse than lies? Why
did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because
we loved our country. What difference does it
make if a few political extremists lose their
rights? What difference does it make
if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It
is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we
are going through. It will be discarded
sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded -- sooner or later.
The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows!
We will go forward. Forward is the great password.
And then, one day we looked around and found
that we were in an even more terrible danger.
What was going to be a passing phase had
become the way of life.”
Comments?
Very poigant ending, and the similarities are scary. This world is on a dangerous path for sure, and we are only a week into the timeline.
This is a dark, but very compelling timeline!
Really interested to see where this ends up. Might actually do wonders for European integration, but not so much for the human rights of Muslims, or their lives for that matter...
I wonder what you have in store for Belgium, will it still exists in its old form? How long will the refugees stay in The Netherlands and France, and how will the ties between those two nations and Belgium develop?
Really interested to see where this ends up. Might actually do wonders for European integration, but not so much for the human rights of Muslims, or their lives for that matter...
I wonder what you have in store for Belgium, will it still exists in its old form? How long will the refugees stay in The Netherlands and France, and how will the ties between those two nations and Belgium develop?
The problem with this timeline..........is I could easily see it happen in real life. Humans are fearful and this one act could see the world split along religious lines. Anyway love the timeline, great writing, lets enjoy the ride and see where it takes us.